#249 January – Contact Light

What was Alan McGee to do when his baby Creation Records collapsed? Home to such stellar artists as Ride, Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine, the Boo Radleys and Teenage Fanclub it was instrumental in creating some of the best albums in the 1990’s. His follow up Poptones was always going to have a job on its hands to replicate the success and so far it has struggled. While not discovering anything as important as any of the aforementioned it has had some creditable successes such as the Hives, January and their latest flag bearers the Late Cord (of which more later). January was primarily Simon Mclean’s project but a lot of the credit must go the slide guitarist Sarah Peacock who could whip a dreamy concoction of splendid riffs at the drop of a hi-hat. On their finest moment ‘Contact Light’, Mclean’s vocals are wispy and touching while a flotilla of loveliness pours forward from Peacock with the unhurried feel of a council worker. KD